


A Yearning Inside (It's Showing Through)

by wilderswans



Series: Widomauk 30 Day NSFW Challenge [7]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Angst, Blow Jobs, Come Shot, Dirty Talk, Fantasy lube, Feelings, Feelings Crisis, M/M, Molly is a Feelings Disaster, Molly loves baths and you can take that to the bank, Pet Names, Pining, half-clothed sex, holy tone shift batman
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 07:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15505167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wilderswans/pseuds/wilderswans
Summary: When Molly leaves to take a bath, Caleb is hunched over one dusty old book or another, brow furrowed in concentration as he turns pages with one hand and scribbles notes with the other.(Day 7 of the 30 Day NSFW OTP challenge: Dressed/naked)





	A Yearning Inside (It's Showing Through)

**Author's Note:**

> so uh this isn't my favorite thing that I've written but it's written! ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> also I'd like to give a shoutout to my beautiful girlfriend who will answer texts like, "hey what kind of lube does Molly have" at 3 am and utilizing her Historical Lube Knowledge for the betterment of this fic. (Also, it's yam lube, which is way cooler than it sounds.)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and leaving comments+kudos if you are feeling so inclined. I can't tell you how much I appreciate them, and how much I've enjoyed working consistently on this challenge. 
> 
> (Title from Depeche Mode's "I Want You Now")

When Molly leaves to take a bath, Caleb is hunched over one dusty old book or another, brow furrowed in concentration as he turns pages with one hand and scribbles notes with the other.

When Molly comes back from the bath, sparkling clean and generally feeling like a million platinum pieces with a bath sheet wrapped around his hips, Caleb has not moved. The only change that’s occurred in the room is the light’s gotten a bit dimmer as afternoon is slipping steadily into evening, and Frumpkin has abandoned his post on Caleb’s lap to curl up in the windowsill, a perfect sphere of kitty contentment.

Molly takes very long baths, and Caleb had not moved one jot.

(Truth be told, he would have stayed in the washroom longer, except Beau had started to pound on the door and griped, “Fuck’s sakes, some of us would like to wash up too!”

“Then you should have beaten me here!” he’d called back cheerfully.

“ _Fuck_ you, Molly.” Beau yelled, beginning to sound truly exasperated.

“Yeah, fuck you too,” Molly had called back through the door, and lifted one leg in the tub to scrub the bottom of his foot with the little square of volcanic stone in his personal care pack, sighing happily. Molly _loves_ baths, even more than he loves aggravating the monk.)

“Caleb,” Molly says now, shutting the door behind him and locking it for good measure. If any of the Nein were really determined they could find a way around the lock entirely, but it’s the gesture that counts. “Caleb, darling.”

Caleb turns a page. Walking closer, Molly can see the little pinch between Caleb’s brows that means he is not in this room - his entire focus is very, very far away right now.

In the past few weeks, Molly thinks he’s gotten pretty good at discerning whether that focus is somewhere safe (studying, theorizing about the arcane) or whether he’ll need to snap Caleb out of it (bad memories, flashbacks, those stretches where that knife-keen mind just up and leaves the building). This afternoon, it’s the former. Molly can’t pretend to read the notes that Caleb’s scribbled, and even if he could read them he knows he wouldn’t be able to understand them, but he does know that for as immersed as Caleb gets in his studying, it must truly be something special if he’s this deep.

“Hey,” Molly tries again, gently. “Caleb.”

Nothing.

Then, Caleb turns a page.

Molly would cross his arms over his chest, if he wasn’t currently keeping his bath sheet up around his waist. He’s not irritated, but he would like to see Caleb perhaps stretch, maybe drink a glass of water, or if he’s lucky, join him and the rest of the Nein for dinner. The last time he saw Caleb eat was this morning, and he can’t let Caleb sit there and ruin his eyes as the room grows darker.

Also, he’s clean and smells good and he _really_ wants someone to appreciate this fact before he puts any clothes on. Molly has never claimed to be an altruistic sort of tiefling.

“Caleb,” he attempts - fruitless as ever. It might be time to switch tack, here. “Darling, dearest hobo wizard of ours. King of the kittens? Owner of the world’s cutest bum freckles?”

(Caleb did, in fact, have a few scattered freckles on his arse. The first time Molly saw them in the bathhouse he thought he was going to have a heart attack.)

Caleb remains resolutely in his book. Damn.

“Caleb-waleb-candy-pies? Sugarnips?”

(Molly actually hasn’t gotten his hands, or his mouth, on Caleb’s nipples yet. He makes a mental note to do that immediately, if Caleb doesn’t decide he’s never going to sleep with Molly again after the barrage of horrible pet names.)

Caleb’s only response is to turn another page. That little furrow between his brow remains, stubborn as ever.

Molly sighs. Perhaps this is divine retribution for his so gleefully aggravating Beau. “Turnip-toes,” he tries again. “Snuggle-bum. _Fuck_ , uh.” He racks his brain and the only thing he can come up with is something he’s heard Caleb call Nott on occasion. “ _Schatz_?”

Lo and fucking behold, Caleb blinks, then blinks again, and slowly turns to look at Molly. He’s moving stiffly, and wearing a rather owlish expression still. “Mollymauk?”

“I’ve only been trying to get your attention for the past five minutes, darling,” Molly says. Before he can help it, he has to lean in and plant a kiss between Caleb’s brows, then another, until that little furrow of concentration is gone. The wizard sighs, leaning back in his chair.

“Ah, I’m sorry, I -” he begins, and then stutters to a halt. “You smell good.”

“Comes from taking a bath, you ought to try it every so often,” Molly says playfully. There’s a peculiar gesture Caleb does with his eyes, but it’s very brief and Molly is almost sure he imagined it, but it almost looked as though he were rolling his eyes at Molly. “You ought to get cleaned up too. And you should eat.” He wants to add, _and pay attention to me_ , but he also does not want to sound like the needy two-year-old he actually is.

Caleb sits back in his chair, and the cacophony of noises his joints make when he stretches makes Molly actually wince. “Take a break?” he asks, resting a hand on Caleb’s shoulder. He fully expects to get shrugged off.

Much to his surprise, Caleb acquieses with a hum. He closes the book with great reverence and tucks it back into the holster beneath his coat. Such regard for his own health and the state of his spine needs to be rewarded, Molly decides, and leans in to give him another kiss on the forehead.

Caleb gently bats at the curtain of damp purple hair that cascades over his face when he does that, though. Molly laughs, and does it again.

“Are you just going to stand there dripping on me?” Caleb asks, scrunching his nose when another drop of bathwater lands on his face.

“Will it be the most effective way of getting you to stand up?” Molly counters. “A break’s not a break if you just sit in the same chair.”

“ _Ja, ja_ ,” Caleb mutters. The chair feet scrape on the wooden floor when he scoots it back and unfolds his gangling body from beneath the desk, reaching towards the ceiling in another yawn-and-stretch that makes Molly’s stomach flip over.

As far as outward appearances go, Molly thinks he’s been very good at keeping the unfortunate epiphany that he’s in love with this slightly smelly, overly-studious wizard under his proverbial hat. They’ve been sleeping together, and Molly would be the first to attest that there’s a certain level of care, of intimacy, required for any physical interaction between them.

Falling in love, however, is another thing entirely. He’s half-convinced if Caleb knew he would bolt and leave the Nein forever. Love requires commitment, a level of vulnerability, a willingness to be hurt.

Molly is willing to be hurt. He bleeds himself enough and would gladly offer Caleb the knife in return. But the world hurts enough as it is, and Caleb has been hurt in countless ways by the people who did not deserve to see the brilliance of his mind and the softness of his heart - so Molly remains silent. He’s lucky that he has this, the opportunity to kiss his forehead and warm his bed on occasion.

“Your accent is still terrible, by the way,” Caleb comments as he hoists his pack onto the bed and begins to rifle through. Molly rolls his eyes, trying to calm his aching heart.

“Well, whose fault is that for never having gotten around to teach me?” he says, sidling up to Caleb.

Caleb huffs, but there’s the shadow of a smile on his lips anyway. “Maybe you _like_ my unique spin on Zemnian,” he continues, trying to sound canny. “Does it get you all hot, Caleb? Be honest now.”

Caleb rolls his eyes again but abandons whatever he was searching for in his pack. Very slowly, he turns to face Molly, and sweeps his gaze up and down in a way that leaves Molly feeling raw and exposed, like he has the ability to flay him alive with his eyes alone.

Molly drops the bath sheet.

Caleb turns red, eyes darting down and back up as if he’s afraid to be caught looking. Molly feels a surge of delight; he steps forward deliberately over the rumpled bath sheet, giving Caleb plenty of time to back away if he doesn’t want this, but the wizard remains stolidly in place as Molly curls around him in an embrace and kisses beneath his earlobe.

“ _Schatz_ ,” he says again, low and soft, and he knows he’s gotten it this time because Caleb gives a reflexive shudder against him, and begins pawing at his shoulders, trying to get him at the angle for a proper kiss. Molly brings his arms around Caleb, winding into his hair and clutching at the back of his coat, and can’t help but smile against his lips.

“Really?” he asks incredulously, after Caleb’s paused in attacking his mouth. “That’s what does it for you? Proper pronunciation?”

“Maybe.” Caleb hesitates. “That and you do smell really good.”

Molly’s about to say something along the lines of, “More incentive for you to bathe and for me to study,” but Caleb’s started kissing him again, and he is content to go with it. Caleb’s hands hover at Molly’s hips, where they would naturally gravitate if Molly was wearing clothes, but the hesitation makes Molly take matters into his own hands - so to speak - and he guides Caleb’s hands to his hips. The long, lingering slide of Caleb’s hands up and down his bare skin makes him shiver, fingertips trailing against raised scars, and something in the touch makes the decision for him.

He breaks the kiss, licking his lips, long enough to sink back onto the bed, clambering backwards with what he hopes is some measure of seductive grace. Caleb is breathing very hard; his hands twitch as if they miss Molly’s skin.

For a moment all they can do is look at each other - Molly, completely bare against the patchy quilt and feeling heat roiling in his gut as he grows hard just from Caleb _staring_ at him, and Caleb, fully-clothed and red-cheeked and slightly glassy-eyed. The moment stretches between them like a piece of pulled carnival taffy, and Molly feels several inadvisable words bubble up in his throat. He swallows hard, forcing them down, and says, “My coat - inner pocket -”

Caleb immediately turns to rummage through the pockets of his coat; Molly hopes his cards aren’t terribly angry with him for letting Caleb get all handsy with their pouch as he shuffles through the patch pockets sewn into the inside of Molly’s coat. It’s only a few moments, however, before Caleb comes back to the bed, holding a little bottle delicately between two fingers.

Molly looks at him and swallows again. “Get down here and kiss me,” he says, hating how breathless he sounds. Caleb does, the mattress dipping and the bedframe creaking as he joins Molly on it, shuffling awkardly up next to him because he’s still holding the bottle. Molly cups his stubbly cheeks in his hands and for a moment merely lets his thumbs trace Caleb’s cheekbones, before pulling him in for a kiss.

“Yasha’s going to need to give you a shave again soon,” he murmurs against Caleb’s mouth.

“Later,” Caleb says, sounding very distracted as Molly’s hands run down his sides to start rucking up the hem of his shirt. The thin skin of his stomach trembles, raising in gooseflesh as Molly traces a nail next to the hem of his trousers, which, Molly notes with definite appreciaton, are starting to look rather tighter than they did just a few minutes ago.

“I haven’t gotten to enjoy you freshly-shaved yet,” Molly muses, trailing the tip of his nail back and forth. Caleb moans softly, pitching forward against him for more contact. “The first time I saw your face all smooth like that, the only thing I could think of was how badly I wanted to sit on it.”

Caleb bites his lip, closing his eyes as he exhales slowly. “ _Gods_ , Mollymauk -”

Molly makes a very bold mental note that despite how red his cheeks are, Caleb does not seem at all put off by that. He’ll have to talk to talk Yasha into giving Caleb another shave sooner rather than later. In the meantime, however -

“Darling,” he says, trying to keep it conversational. Caleb’s pupils are blown wide and his gaze is heavy when he meets Molly’s eyes again. “How do you feel about getting your fingers inside me?”

“In general, or right now?” Caleb asks, managing to sound wry even as he’s red-faced and out of breath. When Molly pinches his side beneath the shirt he gasps and bites his lip in a transparent attempt to hide a smile. “Amenable,” he says. “Very amenable.”

“Glad we’re on the same page then,” Molly says. He scoots up to the head of the bed and tries to ignore how hot he suddenly feels as Caleb’s eyes watch him get situated. He’s never felt so exposed, suddenly, as he lets his thighs fall apart and cants his hips forward.

He doesn’t miss how Caleb’s tongue darts out to wet his lips, how his gaze can’t seem to settle between looking Molly in the eyes and staring at his hole.

“Up here,” Molly says, patting the mattress beside him. He wants to kiss Caleb while he’s getting fingered; despite his vast experience getting fingered it’s not something he’s ever done before and something about it strikes his fool’s heart as devastatingly hot and not the least bit romantic.

Caleb doesn’t need to know that, though.

Eager to please, Caleb follows Molly up the length of the bed and settles at his side, still holding the bottle. Molly takes it from him only to uncork it and dribble a generous amount of lube into his palm.

“It’s not the fanciest option,” he says, feeling self-conscious at the silence in the room and the studious way Caleb is watching him. “But it’s nice.”

“It also smells good,” Caleb comments. Molly’s lips quirk. It rather does - a little sweet and somewhat earthy. The scent had been what appealed to him when he looked over the variety of bottles in the velvet-walled little shop he’d happened upon in Zadash.

“Fingers, please,” he says, when the drizzle of lube is sufficiently warm in his palm. Caleb proffers his hand, and Molly coats his first two fingers generously with the lubricant, trying to ignore the burning sparks beneath his skin. But something occurs to him, and he has to double-check. “Have you done this before?” he asks, and immediately winces. “No offense intended if - if not.”

Caleb shakes his head. “I have, erm...read about it, however.”

Molly huffs a gentle laugh, leaning in to brush a kiss against his lips. “Of course you have.”

“The theory, I have down,” Caleb says, shrugging. His fingers are dripping lube to the knuckle, and Molly practically itches with how badly he wants them inside him. “The practice...”

“You’ll do brilliantly,” Molly says. He bends one knee and brings it up, foot flat on the mattress, and spreads his legs a little more. “You can touch me, you know,” he offers, voice a little lower.

Caleb colors, but brings his hand down. For a moment he hesitates, hand lingering between Molly’s legs, before tracing his fingertips softly against Molly’s hole. Molly can’t stop his delighted gasp, nor the little squirm of pleasure he gives when Caleb repeats the motion with a good deal more confidence. It has been so long, and Molly has wanted this so badly - Caleb touching him, this most intimate place of him, with questing fingers.

When he imagined this happening he didn’t think Caleb would still be wearing his coat and shirt and trousers, but he’s not complaining.

“One or two?” Caleb murmurs. His fingertips are rubbing against him in slow circles, and it feels so good Molly just might crawl out of his own skin.

“One,” he says, breathless. “It’s been - _oh_ , it’s been a minute.”

He thinks he catches Caleb’s mouth twitch at that and there’s something self-satisfied with the way he leans and kisses Molly, tongue sweeping across his lower lip, as he slowly begins to press a single fingertip in. Molly gasps and lets Caleb in, feeling flushed and shivery and damp with sweat as he opens up around that single slick digit. Before all of this started, before they had even kissed, Molly had noticed Caleb’s long fingers as he turned pages and copied spells and summoned light and flame, and had wondered, faintly, how those fingers might feel inside of him.

In short? Pretty fucking amazing.

Caleb is wearing that expression of intense concentration again as he thrusts that single finger in, minute little motions that open up some sort of needy longing in Molly. He raises his arms to wrap around Caleb’s shoulders, drawing him down into another open-mouthed kiss, sighing at the sensation of their tongues meeting in a slow slide.

Then Caleb’s finger slips out, leaving him bereft and whining until two fingertips cautiously begin to breach him. He feels as if he’s suddenly drowning. His arms tighten around Caleb’s shoulders; he yields to Caleb’s tongue and the hot press of his fingers and wishes he could say something, that he could somehow convey the overwhelming pleasure of it all. He’s reduced to a creature of wanting, speared on Caleb’s fingers and chasing the taste of his mouth. On his basest level all he wants is this - fingers and sweat and the slick burn of being opened. He wants Caleb to fuck him so badly he’s almost faint with it. He wants -

 _I want to swallow you whole_ , comes the slightly delirious thought. The notion cuts him to the core - the thought of being so close to this brilliant beautiful slightly-awkward man that the borders between them blur and dissolve. He’s glad his mouth is otherwise occupied, because that would be a very unwise thing to say, and it doesn’t make sense anyway. But maybe Caleb would understand - maybe that’s what Molly was trying to convey when he whispered that one pet name in Zemnian.

Caleb’s fingers are now thrusting easily into him, excess lube making obscene sounds with every push in, and somewhere along the way Molly’s let his legs fall open so he can rock his hips to meet Caleb’s hand. They haven’t stopped kissing as Molly fucks himself on Caleb’s fingers, and it’s every bit as delicious and overwhelming and horribly romantic as Molly suspected it might be.

Then Caleb crooks his fingers and rubs up against the little spot within him, and Molly’s vision whites out.

He’s briefly aware of several things all at once, but can’t parse through any of them - his mouth making the shape of words, “Fuck fuck _fuck fuck fuck_ ” rapid-fire and breathless, and his hands scrabbling for something, anything to hold on to as Caleb keeps _fucking hitting that spot_ , a crackling burn as sparks fly up his spine and down to his toes, a roaring noise in his ears, and - and -

When he opens his eyes again Caleb’s withdrawing his fingers and conscientiously wiping them on the closest sheet. He feels drenched with sweat, hair sticking wetly to his forehead, and feels the slightly awkward stickiness of his own cum beginning to dry on his chest and stomach.

Caleb is staring at him with something like awe, and a good measure of heat, and Molly becomes dimly aware that he just fucking came without a single finger on his dick.

“That was,” Caleb says, and bites his lip. “Impressive.”

Molly feels too wrung out for any sort of witty rejoinder, but he does quirk his lips. He closes his legs, feeling fucked-out and still a little sensitive, before he rolls over onto his stomach.

“Lie back, darling,” he says, voice a little hoarse. Caleb hastens to comply, and when Molly undoes the flies of his trousers his cock springs out, flushed dark red and leaking slick fluid at the tip. Molly doesn’t bother with any sort of preamble - he wraps his lips around the head, moaning at the taste of Caleb’s pre-spend, salt and bitter and earthy, before swallowing him nearly to the root.

Caleb thrusts into his mouth, already so close, and Molly relaxes his throat and closes his eyes, breathes against the sharp prickle of tears in the corners of his eyes as he lets Caleb use his mouth. It’s only a few minutes before Caleb groans and curses, one hand flying to the back of Molly’s head and tangling in his curls, as if he’s unsure whether to push him away or pull him closer. Molly swallows around him, feels him throb on his tongue before Caleb comes in his mouth. He thinks he’s prepared but apparently his recent orgasm has hollowed out his brain, because he chokes and coughs and has to pull away as another pulse of cum hits his chin and neck.

“ _Scheisse_ ,” he hears him mutter, and Molly feels a final weak spurt join the cum already on him, dripping down to his clavicle.

For several moments all they can do is pant and try to gather themselves back into coherency as the room grows steadily darker. Soon they’ll have to light a lamp if they want to be able to see each other, but Molly can’t bring himself to move. He rolls back over, tail swinging back and forth in contentment and knocking against Caleb’s leg on its trajectory.

The wizard huffs a soft laugh the third time he feels Molly’s tail, opening his eyes. “You are going to have to take another bath,” he says, lifting a hand as if he wants to trace a finger through his own cum on Molly’s face.

“Really?” Molly says. “I was thinking I’d just go down to dinner like this.”

Caleb snorts. “It is a very good look on you,” he says. Leftover heat in his voice makes Molly’s guts seize up. 

This would be a good opportunity for him to say - something. Anything. Words bloom and die on the tip of his tongue. None of them seem right, and his heartbeat suddenly grows very loud and fast in his ears as he dithers. He knows Caleb is no clairvoyant but he can't shake the itching feeling that somehow, moments ago, his thoughts were too loud - that Caleb saw the desperate pull of Molly's heart.

“I should,” he begins, and stands up too fast. His head spins. His heart is going to beat right out of his chest. He steps around the side of the bed until he finds his discarded towel, still a little damp, and begins to wipe his face. “I should go - clean up.”

Luckily the washroom is empty, no Beau or other patrons to witness him speeding in and all but slamming the door behind him. Molly discards the old towel in the enormous basket provided and turns the water in the little tub on. This time the wash is perfunctory; the water is lukewarm at best and he sits and shivers in the tub when he’s scrubbed clean with the little scrap of utilitarian white soap the inn provides. He hadn’t thought to grab his own pack of soap and other delights as he fled Caleb’s room.

The water grows cold around him as he sits and wonders how he managed to get so badly in over his head.


End file.
